We all know what rotting meat smells like, and hence the term, “What died?” has entered the popular lexicon. Just words though, Goode Reader, for there is a quantum leap in the experience that lies between pulling the lid off something found forgotten at the back of the fridge, and the full flower of meaning inherent in those singular smells that truly cannot ever be unsmelled.

Back in April of 2012, I published a poem here called Crime Scene Man, inspired by the career path of my Esteemed Friend Martin, who is just such a thing of a person. I mention him today partially because of the subject matter, and also because it would be a piss poor season of Dark Sentiments if he didn’t receive appropriate honourable mention. To quote that poem free from other preamble:

Martin is a crime scene man, He figures bad things out. His job is sorting nasty shit, And sifting truth from doubt.

He sees the things you can’t unsee, He smells what won’t unsmell. He’s crusty as so many are Whose first name’s known in Hell.

And yet his necessary job Pays bills and feeds his brood. And I’d be last to call him on His right to blackest mood.

You see, he’s just like you and me, With problems of his own, But Martin has some extra ones, Straight from the Twilight Zone.

The operator of the big green truck that takes away what you leave by the side of the road every other week gets to experience some pretty vile things, but unless he’s numbered among the exceptionally unfortunate, none of that detritus will bear even a passing resemblance to a human being, let along someone he knows, loves, or worst of all, calls him Daddy.

Tonight we’ll be looking at two films detailing the way the process of decomposition can serve to put the lie to a perpetrator’s belief that no witnesses have been left behind. I’d be the last to claim that it’s impossible to make someone simply disappear, or if their remains are found, to have engineered a complete separation between the deceased and those who made them that way, but most killers don’t bring that kind of finesse to the project.

First is a short news piece put up by Vox.com called The fascinating process of human decomposition. It’ll cost you less than four minutes of your life, and contains some interesting points that will prepare your mind for our feature du jour.

Second, and demanding of three quarters of an hour of what precious time you have left, is the National Geographic production, Secrets of the Body Farm. Make yourself some nice buttery popcorn and prepare to be educated.